When you're going to school primarily for career purposes, it's more important to focus on which program is best for you. In addition, your success at college depends far more on what you do at the college than at which college you do it: Choosing the right program, then the right advisor, the right courses, the right term papers, the right co-curricular activities, the right fieldwork, the right internships. You can make those choices at any college.

You might want to keep trying to rise, using a path that builds on your natural strengths: sales, analysis, managing people, whatever, and keep asking for honest feedback. When you reach the point at which it feels clear you've topped out, revise your job description or take a step back. Up is not the only way.

As a writer, you have control: You can play around with your own thoughts and when you find those insufficient, draw upon others': their wisdom, their humor, their failings.

I believe the personal essay is underrated for both writer and reader. It affords the writer great freedom: to speak personally yet invoke others' ideas, to be rational and/or emotional, to be confident or admit doubt.

Only someone who already knows and likes you is likely to give you a good job with modest relevant experience.

Many psychotherapists believe laziness is usually just the symptom. That the real problem is fear of failure, fear of success, or fear of authority.

Education isn't a magic pill. There is no magic pill. But the closest we have is practical expertise and relentless drive.